Her knees hit the wet planks painfully hard as they shoved her down and tied her hands around to the weathered wooden post. She was trembling all over. From the cold drizzle, from fear, from anger…she wasn’t sure which. The Lashmaster tore her sodden tunic apart from the neck down to waist, allowing the fabric to fall away and expose her naked back. The tunic had been her only garment. They probably knew that.

The petty official overseeing the affair barked out her name.

“Lyra Stael, slave. Accused of theft from a registered merchant. The sentence is thirteen lashes.”

The Lashmaster unfurled the meter-and-a-half of treated ox leather with which Lyra would be tortured. Lyra leaned in toward the post, bracing herself against the soggy timber. She took a deep breath in.

The lash cracked like exploding gunpowder.

The breath was punched out of her chest from behind.

The streak of pain ignited across her back, a white-hot flare.

She blinked away tears and tried to writhe the pain away, her mouth opening in a wordless howl. She pressed her forehead against the wood, beginning to hyperventilate.

Another lash. Another breathless jolt. Her scream died in her throat, coming out as a raspy choked whimper. She hiccupped. Her eyes were streaming, nose leaking.

They struck her again. And again.

Then came the sound she most dreaded in the world.

 “Stop, you bastards!”

Her brother, his voice hoarse with rage, came barreling into the square. His eyes were wide, his taut, wiry physique animated by a vengeful fury. Two guards jumped on him mid-charge, one slamming a club into his ribs, the other twisting his arms behind his back. He still thrashed, still fought, kicking out with mud-blackened bare feet as they beat him to the ground.

“Cullen,” Lyra rasped at him, her voice thin and quavering, “Please don’t.”

Twenty-four summers since her brother had come into this world. Twenty-four years since she became duty-bound to keep him from hurting himself. With his temperament, it had always been a losing battle.

And she was about to lose it again.

“If you touch her again-!” He choked on the rest of his threat, spitting as they pushed his face into the dirt.

The presiding official cocked an eyebrow. “I suppose this one is her responsibility as well. Very well. Tie him up on the other side.”

Lyra was vaguely aware of herself pleading with them as they stripped Cullen naked to the waist and dragged him to the post. Pleading not for herself, but for him. He didn’t resist as they roped his arms around the post, his hands together with hers, the cords biting into his wrists.

He pressed his forehead to the wood and looked up at his sister, his eyes meeting hers through the damp, matted tendrils of his dark hair.

“I said I would take the next one,” he said gravely, wincing as they tightened his restraints.

He blurred in front of her as her eyes welled.

“I never asked you to,” she whispered. “You idiot.”

He closed his eyes and gave her hand his best attempt at a reassuring squeeze.

“For obstructing a punishment,” the official announced. “And for assaulting a judicial officer, the combined sentence for the lad will be eighteen lashes!” He stepped away from the platform again, making room for a deputy with another whip to join the Lashmaster.

“…with nine lashes still to go for the girl.”

The whips, in chorus, whistled through the cold, damp air and snapped across their shivering backs.

They both buckled under the blows, Lyra gasping, Cullen groaning. Their fingers tightened around each other’s wrists as they fought with all their strength to remain upright.

Another pair of biting, shocking blows beat them down again. The Lashmasters worked methodically, prolonging each lash into its own trial of endurance. The rains fell harder now, and the siblings’ wet, tender skin began to split and weep. The modest crowd had grown. Some grimacing, some flinching sympathetically, and some just staring impassively.

Lyra slumped to the ground when she had taken her thirteen, her arms still suspended from the pillar but her legs curled up defensively, hissing and whimpering as the rainwater ran pink down her aching sides. And still she had to wait as her baby brother took nine more evil strokes.

When at last the final lash had fallen and the dripping black leather was coiled again in the Lashmaster’s hand, Lyra gripped the post and pulled herself forward with all her strength, her bound hands reaching out for her only family. He was slumped forward, his shoulder resting against the wood, his head fallen forward, moaning piteously with each breath, but still there.

“Hey, hey,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. “You did it. You made it. We made it.”

His eyelids flickered. The corner of his mouth twitched in the barest hint of an acknowledging smile.

Hot tears mixed with the rain running down her face, steaming in the chilly air.